First things first: this is a very smartly designed product, but I had to return it. Here is the full story:Pros:
Never really needs charging: Charges itself using the sun, even on cloudy days. In the 3 weeks I tried this speakerphone, I never had to manually recharge it after the first day. The solar charging makes it a truly wireless device!
Very easy to use: It synced quickly with my smartphone and the text-to-speech of the phonebook was pretty good. Basically it announces the name of the caller as written in your phonebook. There is a big easy-to-reach button to make and end calls.
Cons:
Low Volume: At maximum level the speaker volume is just sufficient for speeds up to 45 mph. My driving is mostly on highway (65 mph), where it becomes extremely hard to hear the other party on the speaker over the road noise. In the same car, Bluetooth headsets worked perfectly fine for me at these speeds.
So how much ever I liked this speakerphone for its solar charging and ease of use, the volume just wasn't enough for me, hence the return.
But now that everyone and their granny has a cell phone, mobile yammering is here to stay, and any attempts to legislate or regulate it will be roughly as successful as putting toothpaste back in the tube. The best we can hope for is to mitigate the distraction factor a bit by getting everyone to use some type of hands-free device.
But hands-free stuff is a hassle. Wired headsets get tangled, lost, broken or subjected to the "I'm just in the car for a few minutes" cop-out. And BlueTooth headsets are quickly becoming the pocket protectors of the 21st century a fashion accessory only geeks want to wear.
The best solution, hands down, is BlueTooth integrated into your car. It's literally a no-brainer get in the car, your BT-enabled phone and the car silently shake hands and get to work. Get out of the car, your phone's back on its own. Ever since getting a car with BlueTooth a few months ago, I can't imagine being without it. Unfortunately, I have to do more than imagine, because I'm often relegated to driving my wife's car, a primitive 2008 model without BT.
But the folks at Miccus have come up with an exceptionally cool, gotta-have-it device called the BluBridge Auto-Talk that makes any car a BT-equipped ride. It's about the size of a closed flip phone, and is one of those little pieces of tech that was obviously designed by people who were paying attention to detail.
The first two rules for any device designed for use while driving should be simplicity and non-distracting. The BluBridge comes with a clear plastic cradle that sticks to the windshield with suction cups, placing it easily within reach. The basic functions of answering and making a call can be handled via a single Big Button that's easy to push without taking your eyes off the road. Bravo. And the sound is far better than I expected from such a miniscule device.
It's got a whole bunch of more intricate features too, including multilingual text-to-speech announcement ("call from two-one-two......"), voice dialing capability (if your phone supports it), and it'll even download your phone's contact list. Set these functions up once, and after that you only need the Big Button.
For me, my number one challenge with in-car devices is remembering to keep them charged. My number two challenge is keeping all those charger wires out of the way. The Miccus folks thought of that too. The back side of the BluBridge is outfitted with a small solar panel. So while it's sitting there stuck to your windshield, it's sucking up the sun and staying charged. Clever. And with a talk time of 800+ hours, even the most overcast environment should keep it charged.
The BluBridge is hands down one of the coolest and most cleverly designed gadgets I've gotten my hands on this year. It's my number one choice for stocking stuffer this holiday season. If more people got one for Christmas, the roads would be a whole lot safer.I bought this product for my Mazda MPV (2001). It is a much needed add on to my car. The charger is a mini USB port so I had some trouble finding longer wires but soon realized I don't even need it. The product itself works great! This has taken me from Michigan to New York without any problems. The fact that I don't have to charge it is a big add on. The giant phone button does almost all necessary work and the text-to-speech synthesizer is acceptable.This item is an excellent improvement over other hand free device offerings of this type. The unit is easy to set up and pair with your phone, and the solar charging is a great addition to this item.
However, I would have issued a 5 star rating if the unit did ALL of the functions as advertised, and it does not.
The manual states that you can basically upload the entire text phone book from your cell phone. This way when you get a call, the speaker will announce the call in the text manner as if in your phone. For example, if you have a friend Dave, and you have him in your cell phone's phone book as "Dave Cell Phone", when he calls, the AutoTalk should announce "Dave Cell Phone". Great feature, right? Mine doesn't work.
I followed the directions three times, and every time the phone book would NOT upload from my cell phone onto the Auto Talk. I e-mailed tech support, they answered once telling me what the phone SHOULD do, and I answered telling them what it IS NOT DOING, and haven't heard from them since.
Overall this is a great product that apparently needs to work out some glitches.
When that is done, and when their tech support actually SUPPORTS the item, this will be a five star product..I have tried several hands free devices. Motorola, Parrot and others. This is by far the best that I have used. Unless you have a new car or a car like my Smart with a Pioneer system in it, this is the best (ADD TO OLDER CAR)
hands free device that I have found. I did have a slight problem. I found that you MUST charge the device before
trying to sync it to your phone. But even after it was fully charged it did not want to stay on. I would push the button, it would come on and immediately say power off and turn off. I went to the Miccus web site and under support found that other people must of had the same problem. I finally managed to get the device to stay on and
had no problem syncing the phone. I also loaded my phone book into the device. It will now announce a person calling by how you have them in the phone. For example when my wife calls me from her cell phone it says (Mary Cell calling). I also like the fact that when you turn it on several seconds later it says (Ready to accept calls) which tells me it is working. My other hands free devices would just turn on and you never knew if they actually connected unless you would look at the blue tooth in the phone settings. I am very happy with the Miccus BlueBridge
Auto-talk. This is the second one that I have bought. I also plan to buy a additional one for my wife for Valentine's Day
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